Julian Green nets first-half hat-trick against Inter Milan

Julian Green is in need of a big summer if he is to earn a spot on Bayern Munich’s first team, and Saturday’s effort saw Green provide the best possible impression on new coach Carlo Ancelotti.

Green led Bayern Munich with a first-half hat-trick in Saturday’s International Champions Cup clash with Inter Milan. The goals come at a vital stage for the U.S. Men’s National Team forward, who is looking to break into Bayern’s first team after several seasons on loan and with the club’s reserves.

Deployed as a striker on Saturday, Green took just seven minutes to score. Fed by David Alaba, the 21-year-old slid in to tap home a close-range shot to give Bayern an early lead.

Green’s brace and hat-trick came just moments apart. In the 30th minute, Green fired a shot from just outside the box to push the lead to 3-0. Five minutes later, the American tapped in another cross, as Rafinha found the forward stationed just outside the six-yard box.

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BombVoyage

I didn’t watch the match closely as my son was building our giant robot overlord. It didn’t seem that Inter was marking too tightly at first. But some great awareness from Green on the first and third goals to time his run and stay onside.

Bayern obviously have a lot of attaching talent and it will be a battle for Julian Green to get minutes on a stacked team (few teams can lose a player of Gotze’s ability and not be worried). The club is also going to play a lot of games with the league, cup, and Champions League plus many of the starting Xi will be playing WC qualifiers so they will need a rest. Green could pick up a couple of starts in German Cup games and some appearances of the bench when the club is rotating their squad. Even if he only appears in 15 matches this season it’s still a vast improvement over the last two years and a step in the right direction. Wish him the best.

Green has been fairly impressive this pre-season. It looks like he is taking that next step in his development….he’s beginning to realize the potential that he showed when he was a teenager. If he can keep progressing down this path, he and some of the other young stars could really transform the USMNT. Each of these potential players by themselves should assist the team….But when combined together it should enable them to play to their fullest abilities. While they all still have a ways to go, they are beginning to live up to their potential.
Really looking forward to the future of the USMNT. A team comprised of extremely talented players in major leagues.
Imagine the potential 4 yrs from now….
——Green(25)——–TBD——-Pulisic(21)——-
—-Zelalem(23)——————-Hyndman(24)—-
—————————TBD———————–
—-TBD—-Brooks(27)—–Miazga(25)—–Yedlin(27)–
———————-Horvath(25)————————-
While there are still positions/players that need to be identified/filled, and some positions/players may not be accurate….this is still a very enticing starting point.

are Wood and Morris too old to drop into that 9 slot between Green and Pulisic? and I mean… lets be real… if we are drawing a lineup based purely on potential… both of those guys have shown way more than Green.

Sorry I know its a limited sample of Green watching two matches and extended highlights of their other preseason match ups, but Green is playing better than Morris at this point in the #9 role. And I don’t think either are wide players as Lost suggested either.

Morris’s inability to hit anything with his left foot cost Sounders the late winner again this week, nice cross in all he has to do is tap it with his left instead tries to hit it with the outside of his right and it goes high and wide. You cannot be a starting striker at the international level and be that completely one sided unless your skill on that one foot is significantly better than most everyone else like Arjen Robben.

Oh, I agree Morris has limitations…I was just responding to that formation where Green was wide left… Pulisic was wide right and there was a gap in the middle… hence my thought that perhaps the commenter had forgotten about someone.

Yup. That’s the thing people really don’t seem to understand. The standard is escalating like crazy. Everybody likes to dump on MLS, but hey, who woulda thunk, back in 1996, we’d be looking at a 20-team league featuring players like David Villa, Kaka, Didier Drogba, Robbie Keane, etc, playing in front of an average of 21,300 fans, good for seventh in the world? I’d have been delighted by that, back then.

Everybody likes to dump on the American player pool in general, but we’ve got players who have played, or currently play, for every major league in Europe. Some of them are even getting onto the truly elite Euro squads, or trying to. Never really thought it would happen.

I never thought I’d see what I’m seeing, the massive improvement across all levels of the pyramid. People need to take a hard look at their wayback machines and get some perspective.

Many people who have commented on the US character have noted that patience and perspective are often lacking from the popular culture. It has always just been a matter of time once soccer became popular among kids. Progress hasn’t always been smooth and consistent, but when looking long term, there has been and will continue to be significant progress.

Wondo & Davis should never have been a part of the USMNT other than January Camps. Neither one has ever been top 25 talent within our player pool. They were the 2 selections for the 2014 WC squad that disappointed me the most.
That being said I am happy to see that the player pool has reached the point where we hopefully won’t see those types of players again.

One thing American fans seem to not realize is that while Green was playing with Bayern’s reserves last season, he practiced almost exclusively with the first-team. I know, “we’re talkin’ ’bout practice,” but Green would have had to battle the best everyday. Doing that helps.

He’s at that age where most big clubs would have sold him off if they didn’t think he still had something to give them.

And that’s perhaps the most telling thing about the American soccer fan mindset currently. If you’re not great at this moment, then you must suck all the time. I mean, geez, one of the top 3 clubs in the world still rates this kid…why the hell don’t we? We, as fans, don’t look in the mirror enough.

At Green’s age Clint Dempsey was just starting his professional career (and I have read that the Revs originally saw him as a defender) and most of his career in the EPL was for a club that mostly battled relegation. A lot of Green’s progress will depend on his desire and willingness to work. He looks to have the ability to be very good or better, but it’s up to him how far he goes.

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